


the moment i saw that bullshit grin

by Maxeli7



Category: The Creatures | Cow Chop RPF
Genre: Drug Use, Fake Chop, GTA AU, Gangs, M/M, Murder, more characters ships and roosterteeth factions to be added, theres like a jack off scene in the first chapter, tw for internalized homophobia in brett's life, tw for past abuse in aleks's life
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-05-27
Updated: 2018-06-23
Packaged: 2019-05-14 08:53:42
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 5,446
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14766458
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Maxeli7/pseuds/Maxeli7
Summary: The best part about Los Santos is the money, in Brett's honest opinion. You can make money from anywhere, and he happens to make his from the gang he runs via Burnie Burns himself and the club he happens to own. The problem is that when you cross earning money with some bullshit plan from God or lack thereof through affections from a Russian gang member?You end up fucked.





	1. Chapter 1

The thing about running Los Santos’s most popular club, is it’s always a front. What the fuck else would it be? You sell drugs, fuck sluts, and make money, and that money has to go somewhere. There’s a point in which you stop questioning it, because James is always fucking bitching for money, and Brett doesn’t have the time to deal with it. When you think too much, and then you breathe too much, snort too much, drink too much, you get stuck in a loop. It’s a whirlpool, and Brett really doesn’t want to bitch anymore when he has to hire a DJ who’s coked out of their fucking mind. All he expects of them is to not fucking piss on the floor and to let the door hit them on the way out when they do. The thing about Los Santos is you can’t really complain, because when you do, you show your hand. You show you have a problem, and the cards you play’ll be soaked in red. By this point, Brett’s heart is on a stake, and he chokes every time he thinks about it, and that’s life, babe! You wake up, you think about the bitch that dumped you and made you move out with James, move away from Denver, and now… you’re here. Brett’s the king of hearts in this Caravan Deck, and he wants to move the fuck on to a game like strip poker.

“So you got a new member?” Hundley asks as he sips his drink, sitting next to James. The kid is dancing with a girl, and Brett isn’t really focused on her ass, he’s focused on the kid’s. 

“He’s a little commie,” James laughs loudly, tipsy.

“Excuse me?”

“Russian. He’s Russian. Adopted kid of some mafia family, great with a rifle, and now we got him here.” James claps him on the back, making Brett jump. He should be doing paperwork, or getting blown by a girl, not looking at a Russian twink’s ass. Is he gay for this? Does this make him gay? He looks at guys sometimes, but not like this. Not like he wants to fuck them. “Do you like him, Hundar?”

Brett doesn’t comment, sipping his drink and crunching on an ice cube. Don’t show your hand, your problem, but all he can focus on is how there’s a problem, how his problem is this smug douchebag of a sniper sauntering over to them with a sparkle in his eyes. He slides into a seat next to Brett, and Brett instinctively shifts away. He’s landlocked, baby, by two babies, by two awful friends, by a friend and a guy he could see himself ruining. Brett drags a hand over his face while they talk, static and ringing coming into his senses. He wants to slip away from everything, then the kid is flashing a hand in front of his vision, and then snickers when he straightens suddenly and speaks in a jumble of a language that isn’t Brett’s own.

“ _Vy pod kayfom?_ Are you alright?” he laughs, soft and quiet, too confident for his age. How old is he anyways? He can’t be older than 24, he can’t be. Either way, Brett wants to break his fucking nose in for being some cocky douchebag, and ALSO making Brett feel some feeling he doesn’t like in his chest. He grew up in Colorado to a good family, a homophobic family, and here he is, lusting after a fucking kid probably way too young, way too annoying, and in need of a lesson to be learned. Brett nods, then watches the guy give that confident grin, sharp toothed, like a wolf. Oh, he’ll fit right into Los Santos.

“Aleks,” he greets, sticking out his hand for a shake in the small space they have.

Brett shakes it. “With a ‘k?’”

“I told you it was weird!” James laughs behind Brett.

“Shut up. It’s basically like ‘Alex.’”

Brett notes that despite the way he’s integrated into American culture with his brands, his hair, his cocky grin, he’s still a bit clipped. It’s like when you don’t know a word right because you’ve read it, never heard it. Brett himself had that with the word ‘supposedly’ as a kid, and he said ‘supposeably’ for a good fucking while until someone corrected him. His tongue is held and he doesn’t comment on Aleks’s slight accent because there’s no need to. He shouldn’t do that, he shouldn’t make Aleks feel bad for knowing more languages than he does. Whether it’s supposedly or supposeably or it’s some bullshit Russian that no one but a handful of people in this club know, Brett decides to be the doubtful silence that let’s them continue on this the conversation.

“Brett,” he greets, “I own this place.”

“Oh, shit!” Aleks laughs, moving his hand away, making Brett’s palm burn with the way it’s left empty, “You should show me around, you know best?” Is this how gay guys flirt? Is this kid even gay? He can’t be, he was dancing with a girl, and yet Brett has danced with a lot of girls and is still fucking wanting to rail Aleks. Is that a thing people do? He’s railed girls before, why can’t he rail a guy? Brett doesn’t even want to think about his heart beating too fast, how he doesn’t have the feathers on his metaphorical wings; they aren’t there to allow him flight. Brett doesn’t want to question it, or think, or think about Aleks, and he stands abruptly, uncomfortable with this whole thing as he shifts past the younger man. 

“You got him too horny,” James snickers into his drink as Brett heads off.

What follows is what the devil’s minions call ‘being turned on and lonely and getting off in your office.’ It doesn’t feel right, because Brett is really trying to think of his ex-girlfriend, but all that comes through is this pushing moment of _Aleks, Aleks, Aleks._ He wants to break his fucking fist against the wall behind him, but he just fucking keeps getting off. The thrumming of movement in the club below makes his chest ache, and a big part of him says ‘I need to fucking get out of Los Santos’ and another part says, ‘I need to stay for the money, for the booze, the bitches, for hot guys. His brain shifts over to the way Aleks’s hips moved when he was dancing, and he just wants to bruise them, touch the skin that was barely shown by the shirt that was riding up on the Russian. He wants to fucking wreck this kid, and that scares him, because maybe, supposedly, supposeably, there’s something on God’s green fucking Earth that told him he shouldn’t be gay. It’s not like he has a problem with anyone being gay, but it’s not for him. He can’t fucking breathe because his hand is spattered with blood, and the king of FUCKING hears needs a queen, not another king, a jack, a joker. His heart is racing, and he’s moving his fist faster with soft pants and little grunts, thinking of how Aleks’s tongue would feel, how his lips would be stretched around Brett’s cock, how his eyelashes would flutter while he’s fucked, how…

Brett cums over his hand, sighing and taking a breath, listening to the beat of the music in the club below, the _unce, unce, unce_ from a DJ that’s lucky he’s still in business. Brett chooses to space out while he cleans up, then gets his pants back on, resting in his chair, elbows on the desk with his face hidden in his hands.

_Get a fucking grip, idiot._

He’s doing lines when James busts in, not stopping until he’s finished the one he was stuck on. 

“Have you ever learned to knock?” Brett asks, sniffing. He left, jacked off, and now he’s doing coke. To be fair, it’s an eventful evening. Aleks hasn’t gotten off his mind, and he wishes a girl was here instead of that kid hanging around in the back, looking at the art on the wall. He’s so fucking pretty, and Brett wonders if he knows it. He’s pretty enough to be a girl, pretty enough to play the role of one. Aleks catches Brett staring, and grins at him, forcing Brett to look away and choose to listen to James.

“You DITCHED us at that table,” James scoffs, “I’m basically your boss, so by that logistic--”

“Oh, I’m sorry,” Brett says, standing and looking down James, who doesn’t seem to shrink, though Aleks looks uneasy. Poor kid, he’s probably only been in shootouts, or at least doesn’t like being snapped at. Maybe he plays mediator too often. Brett, instead, thinks that he just isn’t used to the Los Santos life yet. Just a pretty rich boy with daddy’s money. Or, he’s a pretty rich boy who daddy took his anger out on. “I’m sorry, James, you’re MY boss? You’re the boss to the guy that funds you, talks to Burnie because you’re too chicken shit scared to? This isn’t equal ground, Wilson. You don’t boss me around, okay? If I invite you here, front you money, help you out and get you jobs, you’re not going to treat me like shit.”

Aleks is staring at him, it makes Brett uneasy. Kid has godly eyes, how much have they seen?

James swallows, and doesn’t break eye contact.

Brett doesn’t sit down.

“I like your art!” Aleks blurts, then freezes when everyone is staring at him, “ _Eto prekrasnaya kartina_ \-- very-- it’s... pretty.”

“Thanks.”

“It is nice art,” James comments, then deflates.

Brett sighs heavily, then runs a hand through his hair, closing his eyes. “Burns is bothering you to do a job for him, he wants some gang handled, he wants everything done right. I can give everyone a briefing tomorrow, but for today? Today was supposed to just be me and you, James, no add-on.”

Aleks remains silent, and Brett doesn’t bother to look at his kicked puppy expression.

“My sincerest apologies,” James grumbles.

“Aleks, how old are you?” Brett asks, finally paying attention to him, though still not making eye contact.

“23,” he replies.

“So you’re a kid.”

“I’m not a--”

“So you’re a kid, in a group of kids, who doesn’t know what he’s doing. I don’t care if you have mafia experience, I don’t care if you have job experience; you fuck this job up for Burns and you won’t have a job or life in this town. Welcome to Los Santos.”

Aleks nods, then looks away, scowling. His cocky attitude is gone, and now he’s pissy, and call Brett a cranky, old asshole, but that’s what they need. They can’t have these kids just fucking around and fucking up shit for Burnie. Brett knows Burnie through Kovic, who knows Burnie through a past job, maybe through Joel, probably through Joel. All of Los Santos is strung up in things, where you have hackers like Criken, to gangs like SP7, and Cow Chop. In all honesty, Brett doesn’t have the time to know what territories to go in and what not to go in, it’s all about not showing your hand. It all goes back to that. It’s the way that Aleks shows his hand by being a pissy baby, or how James does it by being mad. If there’s one thing Hundley can do, it’s remain stoic, sharp, and scary. The Three S’s of Safety. You remain safe with intimidation, like fangs on a rattlesnake and hissing show off their power. They aren’t just for sure, and that’s why fuckers in Los Santos’s hospital have to treat people who take that shit as a joke. Brett likes to think he’s a Goddamn mountain lion or something, and these dipshits at Cow Chop are his kin. You protect, but you keep them in line. Even if he has some shitty, gay crush on some kid, he’s not going to act as if he owns the place. He’s not a special sargent, he’s a kid. Brett is the boss here, even if James is a founder, if Aleks knew him, and is almost like a co-founder. What the fuck do they know on running things when Brett has a league of his own. He’s known too many people, and he can do what he needs to to survive.

“Don’t scowl,” Brett says with a sharp laugh, “you look prettier when you smile, anyways.”

And that’s that.


	2. Chapter 2

Brett is traveling to the warehouse the next day, and it makes him uncomfortable to think that he’s going to have to deal with James bitching and moaning about how he didn’t like the way Brett treated Aleks when Aleks was trying to help. It was a big fiasco, last night, with James texting him that he took it too far to be hard on a “friend.” Brett shouldn’t say he’s uncomfortable with these thoughts, he should say he’s frustrated because he has better things to do than deal with a twink, James Wilson, and a gang that’s trying to take Los Santos by storm. He could be anywhere but here, but… he’s not. He’s driving to the warehouse. James isn’t new to the gang business, but he has this thing about friends over jobs, respect over money, and Brett wants to get it through his thick skull that he can’t live in a world where he lets his emotions rule. No one would get anything done that way. James is young, naive. Burnie aims to take care of that, because James has “potential.” In reality, the only thing James has is Brett’s foot preparing to ram his ass. That’s the problem with getting into this business, it’s a mixed bag. You could get AH, or you could get fucking Aleks. Prepared killers, or the kid that looked scared because someone raised their voice.

Brett digresses, he’s uncomfortable, stressed, frustrated, and anxious about everything. It’s a constant thing, y’know? He swears that sometimes he’s still in the mode of an edgy 15 year old who gets high off self degradation rather than an old ass man who has to cart around a shit ton of guys with stunted brain growth for money. He’s always just having a terrible fucking time, and that’s life, it’s how life works. Sometimes you wake up and you’re just in the zone, ready to take on the world, and sometimes you have a gay epiphany, and wake up the next day, and guess what?

It’s still there.

That’s what he got this morning. He’d gone home with a girl the night before, they’d fucked, sure, but he thought about that weird Russian kid. He wants to pretend, in his gut, he doesn’t know the kid’s name. He wants to pretend that the guy’s not even in his vicinity, on his radar. Like, that’s what you do when you have a crush, right? You do that shit where you verbally abuse the person and then you scare them off enough to get your life together. The problem with that is that James would never let him do that, first of all, and second of all? This Aleks guy would probably be into it. 

Brett has a weird relationship with his family. He has a feeling Aleks does too, just from his mannerisms. He holds himself confidently, but very close, like he doesn’t like taking up space, and like he’s uncomfortable with being the center of attention. It’s weird for a mafia kid, because aren’t they supposed to be show stoppers? Aleks seems introverted and awkward, uncomfortable, like he never got the memo he was supposed to be a big deal. Brett kind of gets that-- he grew up in a goody two shoes place, so there’s some commonality there. That’s what he’s getting at, though, they’re two sides of the same coin. Brett has always had this… thing. It’s a thing of liking to stay in the background because he doesn’t really feel worth the time and effort that goes into being a main event. He may be a full course meal, but he doubts someone will go back for seconds. Anyways, he has a thing people in showbiz call ‘emotional neglect’ from his parents, and Aleks strikes him as a dead ringer as his opponent in the competition ‘America’s Next Top Abuse Victim.’ They do that dance with men and women alike, where you egg them on with taunting and hope you get ignored (Brett) or treated like shit (Aleks) like it’s some sick game where you see how fucked up you can get from the PTSD that lays in your bones from a place your child self once called home.

Brett has a weird relationship with his family, and it’s funny, because… misery loves company. He has a feeling Aleks is his company. You know when you walk into a room, and you meet someone for the first time and you can just tell something about them that isn’t in front of your face. Their hair is brown, sure, or their nose is crooked, but it’s something beneath that. There are little traits to every personality type, and some are learned. Brett learned how to make himself into nothing, because no one told him he was ever anything. The way Aleks hunches himself in, while still smirking? The smirk is learned from a position of power, it’s learned through someone. No one comes outside a smug asshole. But when you’re desperately trying to mediate, and jump through hoops with a hunched back that was never meant for the circus, well damn! Damn your scoliosis motherfucking ass, you were not meant for the big top, and you’re better off doing something else, okay? That’s the thing, though, it all goes back to the princple of showing your hand. Aleks, in the way he stood in Brett office, showed his hand. He gazed at the paintings as a way to avoid the conflict, he looked so violently uncomfortable, bordering, intruding on the basis of fear, and Brett noted the way he seemed unsure when he spoke. Brett is almost a sociopath in the way he loves reading people, and something about Aleks strikes him as hard as the way Aleks was probably struck.

So Brett, in his car, takes a breath and drags a hand over his face.

“They gave a fucking scared rat a gun and let him join Cow Chop, amazing,” Brett grumbles, then calls James, letting it go through his car so he doesn’t have to worry about holding his phone.

“Where are you?” is the first thing James asks.

“I’m in traffic, God forbid I don’t work on your timeframe, huh?”

“God forbid Burns reams your ass when he finds out you’re delaying his job-- why didn’t you take back roads?”

“Because I’m a dumbass and I needed time to think, okay?” God, he already regrets calling James.

“Think about what?”

“What, are you my _therapist_?”

“You don’t pay me enough for that. What’s up?”

Brett sighs “Do you really think it’s a good idea to put Aleks in the gang? I don’t want you to get attached, then find out he dies in a heist he isn’t prepared for. It’s not good for you, it’s not good for a kid who’s going to die at 23.” 

“Do you think he can’t handle himself?”

“He couldn’t handle me barely raising my voice at you, James.”

“He has some rough edges! You would know about that--”

“Don’t pull that shit.”

There’s shuffling in the background of the call, from James’s end, and James speaks, finally. 

“I don’t see what you’re so worried about, Hundar.”

“What if he ends up like Trevor? What are you going to do.”

The call is silent for a good few beats.

“James.”

“ _What_?” comes James sharp, almost angry reply.

“What if he ends up like Trevor, what are you going to do? Is that the only reason he’s here? To replace Trevor? I know… it’s been rough, and I know you miss him, but you can’t just adopt a new fucking animal everytime the one before it dies and--”

The call ends, and Brett hears the little beeps to show that James hung up. _That fucker._ Everything falls back to Trevor, the guy that James fell in love with and lost in under two years. It’s funny how love can happen that fast, honestly. You wake up, and suddenly… someone’s not there anymore. People die, everyone knows that, but the moment you realize you’re not invincible via the way people die? It’s… rough. James got it the worst, and sure, Brett hurt when they found out someone took out Trevor, but he was used to death. James, on the golden day of April 30th, died a little bit alongside his boyfriend (was it ex-boyfriend, now?) and that’s life, that’s the life people chose to lead. 

They just expected Trevor to last a little longer. He was a smart kid, hilarious, a really good person. Brett isn’t sure, in this world, in this line of work, if people can be good. You always want to consider your friends to be good people, right? Well, yeah, but there’s just… so much to it, it’s a dichotomy. Trevor, to Brett, was the best thing in a world of crooks. In Cow Chop, Trevor was the good guy, and Brett didn’t even go near the body when they got to it. 

He just let James hold it and cry.

It wasn’t his place, he likes sticking in the background anyways.

Brett’s real shaky, real fearful, that the same thing is going to happen to Aleks, and he’s realizing, in this car, that he cares about people too much. He liked Trevor, Trevor was like his little brother. He’s a hardened criminal, and yet a fucking kid dying is freaking him out, because it could happen again. Maybe this whole thing is rigged, the game of life. Brett doesn’t like thinking about it. He likes to think good people don’t die, but only when he’s not thinking too hard, only when he’s naive and young, like a churchgoer he was. There’s going to come a day, where someone’s going to die, and Brett is going to be the one holding the body, not James. And… he’s not ready for that.

He doesn’t think he ever will be.

He drives, though, and he gets to the warehouse, and he’s greeted by Jakob and James arguing.

“What are you yelling at ME for?” Jakob snaps, crossing his arms, “I didn’t move anything in the stupid warehouse! The only reason everything gets lost here is because you fucking can’t clean.”

So apparently they’re arguing about some lost thing. Drugs, money, a weapon? Brett doesn’t want to intervene, and he walks past the two, unnoticed. It makes him feel a little happier knowing he wasn’t the cause of the argument, even though he was. He was the cause of James’s bad mood by bringing up Trevor. But, it’s valid, you move on.

He’s sitting next to Aleks on the couch, then, just waiting for the fighting to die down as he scrolls on his phone. Aleks looks uncomfortable. Damn, this kid really doesn’t like yelling.

“Don’t worry, they won’t hurt anyone. Jakob’s really chill and James is all bark no bite,” he says, not looking up from his phone. Out of the corner of his eye he sees Aleks relax a bit, but continue to watch them. “Bad memories or something?”

Aleks’s head snaps over, and Brett looks back down to his phone.

“You could say that,” Aleks finally says.

“You get used to it, here.”

And they move on.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> rip trevor press f 2 pay respects


	3. Chapter 3

“It sounds tacky, and uninspired,” Lindsey says, picking up a gun and checking it.

“What d’you mean?” Brett asks.

They’ve been at this for awhile. Brett gave all the details of the heist and went over every part of the plan. James agreed, Aleks agreed, Jakob, Asher, Lindsey, everyone. It was easier than he thought it would be, considering they’re killing an entire gang and looting everything. Brett still doesn’t know if he’s going to participate. There’s no ‘I’ in team, but there’s one in ‘die’ and Brett isn’t very well equipped for that kind of commitment. He really wants to believe he could lay his life on the line for his friends, but he isn’t sure how much these people are his friends, or if he wants to die, OR if he wants to die for these people specifically. Lindsey is basically the exception. He would break a fucking guy’s face for Lindsey. That’s life!

“You know, running a club, meeting a guy, falling in love because he has a nice ass? It’s cliche,” she shrugs, “You can do better, gay or not gay.”

Brett sips the water bottle he has, humming, “Yeah?”

“Yeah. Pick someone better.”

“What if he likes me, though?”

“Brett,” she says, putting on her mom voice. God fucking help him. “You’re a catch, and you should find someone normal who doesn’t kill people for a living.”

“I think that’s just my type,” he says, glancing at a knife as Lindsey prepares everything for the heist. It’s happening tomorrow, but they need to prepare, or at least, she does. James isn’t one for preparing anything, neither are Jakob or Asher. They kind of just fuck up and hope it works. That’s life, that’s death. These fuckers are going to get themselves killed by messing up a simple heist. “I think I’m forever immortalized as the guy who’s going to die at the hands of a boyfriend who was from some rival gang or something. That’s gonna be me, Linz.” He leans back in the sole chair they have in the weaponry room. The warehouse is huge, but they have this one little area and the thing can only fit shelves, a table, and a chair. He was kind enough to take it.

“I think…” Lindsey begins, then cocks the next gun she’s on and checks it, before turning to face Brett, “I think you should take care of yourself before you worry about fucking some loser newbie.”

“‘ _Loser newbie,_ ’ what, you don’t like him?"

“I didn’t say that.”

“It’s implied.”

Lindsey shifts her jaw, and stares him down, thinking. “I think he’s a lot of work, and I think he’s going to end up like someone we once knew, and I think the only one who doesn’t know that is James. I think… when that happens, we’re going to have a shit show, and I think that James is fucked.”

“He’s fucked?” Brett says, finally making eye contact. He doesn’t really like looking people in the eyes, especially not Lindsey when she gives him these kinds of talks. It’s spooky, like a horror show he never got used to. “I don’t think he’s over Trevor enough to be into twinky mctwink.”

“Great nickname, where’d you get it?”

“Shut up.”

Lindsey snorts, then focuses on the gun again. “No, but… James and Aleks have known each other forever. They’re friends through and through. So…”

“So I’m gonna fuckin’ need James’s blessing to fuck his friend?”

Lindsey cackles, throwing her head back, “Hit James up and just casually ask him if you can raw Aleks.”

“Oh, God,” Brett chuckles, shaking his head, “I would rather die.”

“Haven’t you hit up a girl’s dad before for their blessing?”

“Back when I actually got on my knees for something worthwhile, sure.”

Lindsey shakes her head, and the door opens, revealing Aleks.

“Hey,” he greets, watching Lindsey’s eyes flash to Brett.

“Hey,” Brett replies.

It’s a tango, their eyes dancing. It’s when you’ve seen the beauty of things, and you’re dancing in each other’s irises. Sometimes when you dance to a different rhythm than each other, you step wrong, on each other’s toes. It goes… _one two, one two_ , but then he’s moving to a _three four, three four_ and you get lost in the ballroom step of Anastasia before she realized she was going to be shot and lose her memory. Dancing bears and shit, right? Brett almost wants to laugh at his thoughts, but Aleks breaks eye contact, uncomfortable, and Brett raises a brow.

“Do you need something?” Lindsey asks finally.

“Brett.”

“You need Brett?”

Brett is silent.

“James needs him for--”

“Brett, go,” Lindsey beckons, interrupts, “Your party awaits.”

Brett finds himself taking in the way Aleks walks. It’s careful, y’know? It’s that tiptoe shit on flat soles, and he sucks in a breath as he watches Aleks’s hips move. He’s unabashedly staring, but it’s like… what can you do? You stare, and you act like a fucking creep, and you move on. Brett likes to think-- he’s been thinking about this all day-- that if he’s going to be a faggot, he might as well be the best one in the business and take as many potshots at Aleks’s ass as he can, alright? He’s going to oggle and stare, and wear the tightest jeans he can because he wants to destroy his position as a boss with a borderline sexual harassment charge. His throat is rough, and he looks away with blush tinted cheeks as he straightens and unstraightens his jaw the same way his dad used to do. That was a funny thing about he and his dad: they share the same mannerisms, y’know? It’s kind of this funny thing, how we take after people that scare us. Brett takes after his dad, and his eyes scan over the warehouse as they walk and walk and walk. His heart is beating too quickly because he’s anxious, and really? Truly? Brett can’t REMEMBER the last time he was anxious. He’s always fucking stressed, sure, sure, sure, but he is never anxious. Unless anxiety and stress are the same thing.

Aleks speaks, and he blinks.

“What?”

“How long have you known… James?” Aleks says, not looking over his shoulder.

Brett laughs, then shifts his shoulders, “Too fucking long. Should’ve killed him when I had the chance.”

Aleks awkwardly laughs, and Brett minds himself not to step on toes as he does the tango, _the one, two, three... one two three…_ and with the reminder, his heart races a bit faster, the same way it would when he’d race one of his cousins to run to the tree in the expansive acre of land they had in their earthly world, and then back. Brett’s eyes flicker down to the sharp tiling of the warehouse, and he sucks in a breath, then exhales it, going to lift his hat and smooth down his hair, then replace it. It’s funny how much you can do in such a short amount of time, y’know? You can think of the entire fate of your life, of the universe, in so little time. You can breathe so much in so little time. In so little time, your life may end, and Brett watches the way Aleks’s eyes glaze and graze over him as he passes by, into James’s room.

“Hey,” he greets, then crosses his arms, standing in front of James’s desk, “what’d you need?”

“Burns wants a plan,” James shrugs, spinning around in his chair to face the older man, “You have one?”

“Make some shit up, use technical terms,” Brett replies, studying James’s face, then resting a hand on the desk after stepping in closer. “It’s just a go-in, go-out job--”

“Oh nooo it is _not_ ,” James cackles, then turns a computer monitor towards him.

“We’re _a rescue team_?” Brett’s eyes are wide. Why the fuck were _they_ picked? Anyone else would be more competent, anyone. They could get a team of fucking hunting dogs and find someone better than Cow Chop.

“Listen, they know this kid’s dead,” James speaks up, “We just have to find the body. We’re just jump in, jump out.”

“Glad I had no attachments to an intern.”

“Me too.” James scratches over his beard, then sighs, calling out: **ALEKS, GET IN HERE!**

Aleks enters, looking only mildly spooked. Brett makes sure to keep his eyes off the kid, lest he want to feel the wrath of James Wilson.

“You’re paired with Brett, so you won’t get your ass kicked by some goons.”

Brett sighs.

“I can handle myself--” Aleks start, “I’m not five.”

“We still don’t need you fuckin’ dead,” James snaps.

“Oh my God--” Aleks begins.

“Hey! Get the fuck over it, you two’ll make a great team.”

Brett’s telling himself that exact line on the drive to the place the next day.

_you two’ll make a great team_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hhhhy i took forever with this im a tired girl im sorry anyways my tumblr is transnbwerewolf.tumblr.com

**Author's Note:**

> lmao im writing fanfiction again who woulda thunk it. anyways im a slut for brett and my tumblr is poemsofsappho.tumblr.com


End file.
